


The Distant Heart (Das Distant Herz)

by beetle



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brothers, Dark Magic, Family, Family Drama, Family Feels, Germany, Immortality, Love, M/M, Murder, Original Character Death(s), Regret, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Twins, ennui
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 12:37:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4101225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twin brothers are both after the same treasure: one to protect it, the other to destroy it. The question is: How far will they go to possess it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Distant Heart (Das Distant Herz)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badskippy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskippy/gifts), [vinniebatman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinniebatman/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Non-graphic death.

_“Haben Sie wirklich glaube, es wäre so einfach, mein Bruder sein?”_ a familiar voice called in Bavarian, over sweet trills of birdsong.

_Did you truly think it would be this simple, my brother?_

Florian Müller grunted as he let the boulder, which had been huge and heavy, even for  _him_ —and which had, in the end, covered nothing but a shallow hole, empty of everything, save a now matted, filthy cloth in which a box _had_ _been_ _wrapped_ —fall back to the loamy earth with a solid, but muted _BOOM_.

“Yes, Johann, I  _had_  hoped it might be,” he replied cavalierly in matching Bavarian, turning to face his long-lost twin across the small, idyllic glade. Even after almost ten-score years, seeing Johann was like looking in a mirror: _the_ _same_ narrow face and dark, curling hair, silvering at the temples and boasting a deep widow’s peak; _the_ _same_ pale blue eyes, wide and wide-set, made all the more brilliant for being the centerpiece of an olive-toned face; and _the_ _same_ thin, unforgiving mouth rendered mobile by the slight upward curve, as if a smile wasn’t far off. Or, perhaps, even a laugh.

Though, of the two of them, Johann had always been more ready to laugh than Florian: the Müller brothers had always been identical in looks, but _far_ from identical in personality.

Next to Florian’s brother, in a patch of dappled, green-gold sunlight, stood a young man of average height and build, with waving auburn hair framing an angel’s face . . . despite that face being contorted in a rictus of fright. He, like Florian’s brother, wore camouflage from head to foot. Quite unnecessarily, as Florian had never been the woodsman Johann had always been, and thus would never have heard or seen them coming until they  _wanted_  him to.

No, Florian’s tastes had always run to the studious and esoteric—to things which could only be taught or learned by a small few, and usually in clandestine places as different from  _natural_  as it was possible to be.

 _If_ _only_ , Florian had freely admitted to Johann once upon a century _, to understand the nature of my—of_ our _continued existence._

But now was the time for neither conjecture nor reunion. Florian put his hands in his pockets, and rocked back and forth on heel and toe as he and Johann—and Johann’s pretty companion—took each other’s measure.

“Where is the heart, Johann?” Florian finally asked, his voice barely carrying across the distance that separated them. Johann smiled and held out his hands peaceably.

“Don’t let’s start things off on such a . . . terse and businesslike note, Florian,” Johann said, this time in flawless English. His smile was bright and meaningless, like a movie star’s, and quite a contrast to Florian’s stolid, impassive expression. “It’s been the better part of two centuries since we’ve seen each other. I’ve missed—”

“I do not wish to reminisce or . . . _catch up_ , Johann.” Florian paused, then switched to English, as well, though it was heavily-accented. “I want the heart.”

Johann sighed and glanced at his companion, who visibly swallowed and was, a moment later, holding a pistol which was pointed at Florian, who merely laughed and shook his head.

“You know what I am, yes, _meine Kleiner_?” he gently asked the boy, who nodded once, his pistol-hand shaking ever so slightly. “What we  _both_  are?”

“Yes.” The boy nodded again, taking a moment to glance at Johann, and when he did, Florian removed his hands from his pockets quickly, to reveal his own small-caliber pistol, which he aimed at the boy’s head.

“Drop your weapon, little one, or I’ll put one right between your eyes,” he said flatly as the boy’s gaze ticked back to him. Johann clucked and laughed.

“Don’t listen to him, Sean, he’s bluffing.”

Florian smiled and cocked the trigger slightly. “I’m really not.”

Johann snorted. “You don’t have it in you to kill, Florian. You never have.”

“A lot can change in one hundred ninety-three years, Johann. In  _six hundred_  years.”

“And a lot can stay the same.”

Florian’s eyes narrowed and his mouth pursed. “I mean it, brother. Give me the heart or I’ll kill your pretty little friend.”

“If you so much as twitch, Sean will put a bullet in your gut,” Johann said, stepping back slightly, and closer to a grim-faced Sean. “It won’t kill you, of course, but it’ll damn sure  _stop_  you. Painfully, too.”

Florian smiled mirthlessly. “I’ve been gut-shot before, Johann. It didn’t stop me from killing the bastard who did it.”

Johann shook his head. “Even now, Florian, you wouldn’t kill an innocent.”

“He’s an associate of  _yours_ , Johann. I highly doubt he’s an innocent.”

“Compared to us? He’s as pure as the driven snow—well . . . perhaps not quite _that_  pure,” Johann said, his eyes half-lidded, his lips curved in a suggestive smirk. Next to him, the boy, Sean, colored fiercely.

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here, Johnny!” he bit out in a clipped Irish lilt. He scowled at Florian. “We’re equals, remember?”

“Of course, my darling, _mein hübsches Kleines_ , of course,” Johann tutted, just short of condescendingly, but rather fondly. He reached out to run his hand over Sean’s fiery hair, his gaze never leaving Florian. “I’ve put the heart where you can’t get at it, brother. For both our sakes. It hasn’t been here since 1875.”

Shaking his head, Florian finally lowered his gun, his shoulders slumping hopelessly. “I’m  _tired_ , Johann. Aren’t you tired?”

"Sometimes,” Johann admitted lowly, shrugging as if exhaustion was of no moment. “And lonely. But the fatigue . . . it passes. I find another project to spend my immortality on—or another pretty face,” he added, his fond glance lighting on Sean once more. “I distract myself until I’m energized once more.”

“Well, I’ve lost the knack of that, brother. I haven’t been _truly_ alive in over a century. I’m merely surviving,” Florian said softly, and Johann winced.

“You’ll learn to love life again, Florian. Or you won’t. But  _I_  will  _never_  stop loving it. Not enough to tell you where the heart is. Not enough to die  _with_ you.”

“But the heart belongs to us  _both_ , Johann.” Florian blinked, and tears ran down his face as he brought his free hand up to his empty, still chest. “Six hundred and eighty years ago, we were born conjoined at that  _same heart_  and lived that way for the first two years of our lives! The heart is as much mine as it is yours!”

“Yes, it is.” Johann nodded solemnly. “But the witch who split us in twain, and enchanted the heart we once shared, decreed that if the heart were to ever be destroyed, we would  _both_  die. I _cannot_  let that happen. Not even for you. Not even to let you rest, Florian.”

“But I want to  _die_ , Johann!” Florian insisted, clutching his silent chest. “I’ve wanted to die for longer than I can bear to think about!”

“And I want to  _live_ —that will never change.” Johann said simply, but implacably. A look of fury contorted Florian’s face, mottling it red under its olive complexion.

“Perhaps it will if I take away that which makes this awful life worth living for you, eh?” He brought his pistol up again and casually aimed it at Sean, who blinked in surprise and fired at the same time Florian did, his eyes wide.

A moment later, two bodies tumbled to the ground, one with a neat hole between its eyes, the other with a gushing hole in its gut.

Johann, gobsmacked and unscathed, looked from body to body in the silence broken only by the echo of the simultaneous shots, his gaze lingering longest on the body next to him. Lingering on the smoking hole in Sean’s head.

Finally, he knelt slowly, wiping impatiently at his blurry eyes, and closed Sean’s hazel ones before leaning down to kiss each pale lid . . . then Sean’s ashen, cooling lips. “ _Auf wiedersehen, meine Taube, mein süßer_ Engel. . . .”

Then, sighing, he stood and turned away from the body. He marched dutifully over to his moaning, incapacitated twin. Florian was clutching his gut and trying weakly to sit up.

Johann knelt and hushed his brother, who whimpered, his eyes rolling up into his head as blood leaked through his fingers, from behind his incarnadined hand and out of his perforated gut. Johann made a soft sound of concern.

“Don’t worry, Florian,” he said in Bavarian, once more. “I will still take care of you. Once again,  _you_  will be the person I live for.”

Florian moaned again. “ _Johann . . . Laß mich sterben. . . ._ ”

 _Johann_. . . _let me die_. . . .

“ _Be Still, mein Bruder_.”

_Be still, my brother._

A few moments later, his unconscious—but still living—brother in his arms, Johann Müller strode out of the idyllic, now explosively silent glade. He made his unerring way through the thinning forest, back to the _Bundesautobahn,_ and his silver BMW Z4 Roadster.

He maneuvered the passenger door open without putting Florian down—a task made easier by there having been no need to lock the door, this far from more widely traveled roads. Then he slid his fitfully stirring brother into the seat, murmuring: “Safety, first, _mein Bruder_ ,” as he buckled Florian in with a tender smile that quickly faded as he realized that his brother’s legs were practically jammed against the dashboard.

The seat was still adjusted for Sean’s shorter legs.

But that, too, was quickly remedied and thus of no moment. It was seconds before Johann was sliding into the driver’s seat. He pushed the **START** button and the Roadster roared itself into wakefulness, as did the radio which was, as Sean had liked it, cranked up to near-deafening levels.

“You don’t listen to the Ramones at _anything_ less than ear-bleed, Johnny. Don’t you know that?” Sean had asked with mock gravity not two hours earlier as they’d sped down the _Bundesautobahn_ to this very spot. His hazel eyes had been shining with a combination of repressed nerves and wry self-effacement. He’d been absently fiddling with the satellite radio stations till he’d found one that he’d liked, and then his _hand_ had found its way to Johann’s, where it clenched on the gearshift. And there it’d rested till they’d arrived at what would be Sean’s _final_ resting place. Though after Johann had shut the car off, that hand had drifted ever higher up his thigh, as Sean had leaned in to kiss his way down Johann’s jaw and neck, and—

Now, for the better part of a minute, Johann’s hands tightened on the steering wheel in a white-knuckled death-grip . . . then, cranking up the volume on _Blitzkrieg Bop_ even higher, Johann gunned the engine till he could hear it above the Ramones . . . but just barely. The combined din of car and band served to blot out, however briefly, the memory of those final blissful moments before the showdown in the glade.

In the passenger seat, Florian groaned and tossed his head, but Johann, staring straight ahead with brimming eyes, didn’t notice. His lips were moving soundlessly with the words of the song as he continued to gun the engine, hearing not Joey Ramone’s unorthodox tenor and nasally New York accent belting out the infamous track, but Sean’s smoky, uncertain alto and lovely lilt. . . .

A few moments after that, back in the glade, the first wary bird sent a tentative trill into the sunlit air. Another bird responded with equal timidity. In seconds, the trees were as alive as they’d been before disruptive humanity had entered their domain.

Several minutes later, the glade was alight with birdsong that didn’t so much as falter at the hungry, distant din of the sleek Roadster, speeding off down the lonely _Bundesautobahn_ and blasting _Rockaway Beach_ through wide-open windows.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt(s): Distant, and Hearts, per this challenge: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/06/08/critique-session-characters/
> 
> Come hang with me at [Tumblr](http://beetle-ships-it-all)!


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